Bill Belichick’s appearance at the ACC’s recent Football Kickoff media event in Charlotte was so uneventful it almost seemed normal.
His 20-something girlfriend stayed home. The questions he was asked during his shortened 15-minute stay in the breakout interview room all related to football and what he learned from last year’s experience. And he answered them without a hint of sarcasm or disdain.
He even smiled a time or two.
About the only thing that resembled drama was a half-eaten bagel that got put back into its box where it could have been picked up by someone else.
But just when it seemed as though it might be safe to go back into Chapel Hill for a college football Saturday, the circus rolled back in town.
First step out of the clown car was Belichick’s hand-picked general manager Mike Lombardi, who according to a university release was placed on administrative leave on Monday because of a “human resources complaint filed by a former UNC front office employee.” A few hours later, that sideshow was upstaged by news that the College Sports Commission had opened an investigation into the Tar Heels.
It has yet to be reported exactly what is being investigated. But because the College Sports Commission is a panel created as part of the House vs. NCAA settlement to enforce, among other things, rules governing revenue sharing and third-party NIL deals, it could have something to do with Lombardi’s boast of turning UNC into the “33rd NFL team.”
Given Belichick’s previous relationships with the rules – highlighted by the infamous Spygate and Deflategate incidents – it’s hardly a surprise that his program is being investigated for something.
The question now is what happens next.
In Lombardi’s case, it’s only a matter of when rather than if he’ll be shown the door. These “HR complaint” cases never end well for the accused employee. Just ask Belichick’s newly hired offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino, who learned that lesson after being dismissed from his job at Arkansas in 2012.
Belichick’s situation is a lot more complicated and won’t likely come into complete focus until the results of the College Sports Commission’s probe is complete and made public, although the investigation could turn out to be a good excuse for UNC’s administration to pull the plug if the Tar Heels don’t improve on the 4-8 record they posted in the 74-year-old, six-time Super Bowl champion’s overhyped debut a season ago.
That’s a realistic possibility considering that the Tar Heels are picked to finish 14th out of 17 teams in the ACC’s preseason poll.
At least one prominent prediction market site is already taking wagers on when the end might come. Kalshi has set Belichick as a leading candidate to be fired by the end of the season, but because his program suddenly finds itself in what Bruce Feldman of The Athletic called “crisis mode” there’s an eight-percent probability that he won’t even make it until the Tar Heels’ opener against TCU in Dublin Ireland on Aug. 29.
Sure, that’s a longshot. But it wouldn’t be unprecedented. In 2011, UNC fired Butch Davis less than a month before the season began for his role in a scandal that landed the program on NCAA probation.
“We’re working through some things,” Belichick told reporters in a news conference on Thursday. “We’re at a particular time of year now where there are certain things that are in play and there are certain things that aren’t in play that won’t happen until later in the calendar year. We’re taking it day-to-day and working through the things that are on the table.”
This latest chapter in the continuing soap opera that is UNC football under Belichick couldn’t have come at a worse time. Thursday marked the first practice of the Tar Heels’ preseason camp. If there’s any silver lining to the potential chaos that’s unfolding, it’s that the players should be used to it by now.
“None of us looked at it like a distraction,” junior wide receiver Jordan Shipp said of the attention that was thrust upon the program last season. “It’s just we have the greatest coach of all time and you expect more of the spotlight is going on you. We knew that was coming, so it wasn’t really a surprise. We don’t pay attention to that, anyway. It doesn’t matter what everybody else is looking at. That’s not helping us get close to our end goal.”
If that goal is a championship caliber program, it seems farther away now than ever. UNC may have succeeded in making the splash it desired when it lured Belichick out of retirement and hired him in December 2024. But all the Tar Heels have done since then is become a punch line as they submerge like a rock toward the bottom of the ACC.
Welcome to the new normal of UNC football.